A Kayaking adventure

Alright day 3. I woke up early to get some shopping done. I got the regular souvenir stuff – a futbol jersey for me and one for Alan, post cards, something special for my mom and her sisters for Christmas (be excited!), and all that jazz. It was fun walking around. They had a ton of fresh fruit markets everywhere! I wish we could bring fruit onto the ship. It would have been so good. I should have gotten some Olive Oil too since Croatia is supposed to have the best olive oil in the world. I didn’t know this, but I guess it’s true? I then got ready for my Kayaking adventure!

We left the ship at 1:30. We got to the kayaking place where the bus dropped us off and had to walk down this really steep hill and then hundreds of stairs to the beach, which was beautiful and all stone. The instructor, who was pretty attractive, haha, asked if anyone was experience and a few people said they were and they were in the kayaks where you sit inside them and have a skirt. My friend Janae and I were going to get a sit on top double kayak, but the lady said she had a double sit inside one, so we opted for that since we were so eager to get in. I think it was a good choice since it was so hot and our legs were covered. We had an interesting start. We didn’t know how to turn it exactly, so we had some other SAS guy tell us. It was amusing! But we definitely got the hang of it! By the end, Marco, our other instructor for the advanced Kayakers, was teaching us how to surf the waves in! We kayaked probably for a total of an hour and 1/2- - 2 hours. It was definitely a workout! My arms loved it!!!! I had this nifty rudder in our kayak so I was able to steer with my feet which was really nice. Needless to say, I’m addicted to kayaking now. It was SO much fun!!!! I really want to do it again. We kayaked to this Island, Lokrum, and then had a chance to snorkel, which I had to do for my oceanography class. Worst homework assignment ever, right? After observing the life in the water, we got back in our kayaks and headed back to the beach. At this time I started asking Marco questions in Croatian and he was SO surprised that I knew Croatian! He was so happy! He asked me about studying it and everything. It was nice talking to him about learning it and practicing.

That is one thing I disliked about Dubrovnik. I wasn’t forced into working on my Croatian. Everything was in English. Everyone spoke English. Only in 2 instances did someone say dobar dan to me first instead of Hello. It was really annoying. So it was nice talking to him and everything. He said that he’s never met anyone from the US that speaks Croatian or that is learning it. I was amused. So on the way up to the bus, I asked the other guide what his name was in Croatian and he was really caught off guard. Again, he said it was the first time in his life he met someone from the US that spoke Croatian. It was really funny. He wasn’t as talkative as Marco though.

So that was an eventful time! We got back to the ship and I stuffed my face. I was so hungry after kayaking and walking around the city! At the end of the night, we hung out for a bit waiting for some people to get back from Montenegro and then we thought about heading into town. Erin and I were exhausted and wanted to get up early, so we just went to bed. The sun really wears you out and it’s SO hot here. And it’s only going to get hotter!